Re: [this space intentionally blank]

I agree - the border / spacing around articles on the home page is too large. Makes it look like it is designed for large fingers on small screens. But then the toolbar works on mouse-over, and not click.

Can't see anything in the change that I personally like, and plenty that I don't.

Re: About recording calls.

UK law on recording calls is a bit vague. You can record a call without telling the other party, if that recording is not going to be given to a third party. Not sure how it works if you later want to give that recording to a solicitor, or produce it in court.

Same for me. When we moved into this house, was either 100 MBit VM, or 3 MBit ADSL. Guess which we chose.

Does flake out every few weeks for 5 minutes a time, but I can live with that.

When I had Sky broadband and phone at the previous place (fairly remote, 1.5-2.0 MBit), their customer support was pants. Like most companies, if your problem fits into their expected list of problems you can do well. I gave up calling to report failures on the line, and just waited for them to fix it after other people reported the fault.

Re: All UK users must go to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.

It specifically says "who have accounts" are infringing.

However I agree with your general direction - they are asserting that by having an account with the site you have infringed a copyright. Quite possibly true, but I could sign up and not use the account.

Re: Anyone actually expect the hardware is the same?

Micro instances are the worst ones to compare, as their performance is not guaranteed ("up to 2 ECUs"). We sometimes end up with Micro instances where the % Stolen time is huge, and the instance seems all but dead for a while.

Difference from Prime?

This article shows different specs to the original article, and this article seems to show identical specs to the Prime (except for the plastic strip on the case). So £100 cheaper than my Prime, and gets a bit of plastic.

Re: Yay - decent stereo headset!

I totally agree. I've managed to find some reasonable stereo headsets over the years, but it has taken some trial and error by purchasing things rather than reading reviews (due to the lack of them).

I also find that a stereo headset for calls makes it much easier to hear the other person when in a noisy environment (wireless or wired). Also makes it nice to be able to wander around the office whilst on a call leaving the phone in the desk charger.

Wrong picture

Not like a Microsoft, more like an IBM?

I would think the comparison would be better if it were made against a hardware manufacturer. AWS is IaaS - the key being Infrastructure, not SaaS or PaaS.

As such, the comparisons aren't the same any more. The accusations against Microsoft are that they force you to do things their way, use their software, and tie you into all things Windows. I would argue that AWS is more like there being one supplier of 90% of the PCs in the world - you can put all sorts of software on them, use them in a much more varied way.

Granted there is still a sort of lock-in, but the lock-in is only with the hardware that they are virtualising, and we are almost all using that in the non-cloud world.

The only companies they might put out of business are those that offer infrastructure related products. Amazon won't be writing Office type applications, but they will be offering more things that make it easier for people to build SaaS products on their service.

Sizes?

"With tablets and smartphones providing similar benefits to customers and increasingly becoming the same size"

Not sure this makes any sense. The largest common smartphone size is under 4.5 inches, and I believe that the smallest regular tablet size is 7 inches. Quite a difference I'd say, even putting to one side the 9-10 inch tablets.

Not perfect, but a step in the right direction

Hybrids and all electric vehicles have a number of negative points, such as their use of resources in the building of them. Their use does generate CO2, just the location changes. However I think they are a step in the right direction.

Some people used to talk about how horrible diesel engined cars were, but now they are all the rage. The technology improved, so their acceptability improved. I think similar will happen with Hybrids / all electric.